Untitled
by xheartmehorrid
Summary: This wasn't supposed to happen. He never thought it would.


**Untitled**

The whole thing smelled like trash. Earth uprooted all around the dunes, the atmosphere clouded and unstable. Kazuma's nostrils flare as he holds the wrecked HOLY officer up from the collar, gusting warm air in his face in ragged pants, stinking and tingling on his slackened lips. Kazuma growls against the whirlwind debris that effectively muddle his already uncertain vision- white teeth stained red, like he'd been punched hard in the mouth, or an animal just after the kill. But he always was an animal in their eyes, wasn't he?

"You bastard!" He almost screams, drawing him closer with a rough jerk of the neck. "Speak up! I can't hear you!" Silence. Then a snarl. "Wake up you self-righteous piece of shit or I'll kick your ass a second time!" He gives a crude shake of the man's collar, but nothing. A toothy smile breaks out over Kazuma's staining lips, crowding the thin, but battered face. "Quiet type all of a sudden, huh? I guess I should be glad. I never thought I'd get you to shut up." But his gut is riled now.

After a few more minutes of staring down the placid, inexpressive face before him, he snorts and releases his tight fisted grip on the HOLY officer's collar, allowing the other body to drop unceremoniously to the shifting earth beneath his feet in a positively mangled heap. Kazuma crosses his arms over the shredded leather jacket that somehow still manages to stay mostly intact through their frequent battles, cocking his head to appraise the mess that was Ryuhou, looking like death warmed over as he lay there, unmoving. "And you call _me_ useless."

A moment or so passes of dusty silence, and the smug sneer begins to fade into curiousty. He'd just have to wake the bastard up.

Looking him up and down, Kazuma crouches down beside the body, roughly digging the toe of one boot into the other's side. He avoids the long and rather impressive gash- a slash wound previously inflicted in the heat of their scuffle- that has been chiseled into the exposed flesh there, where a bit of the HOLY uniform was torn away. Upon further inspection, it appeared to be a sticky black-red mess, partially congealed by now and no longer bleeding out freely, as one might assume it had before; dirt and dust from the air gathering around the uneven edges of the wound in small accumulation. A possible infection, maybe? Kazuma smiles. He knows his rival has survived worse before, on numerous occasions. But it would still hurt like a bitch.

"Yo, Ryuhou," he speaks to the inanimate figure, rolling him over on his back with his foot; seeing as a mouthful of grime wouldn't really be the most pleasant thing to wake up to. "What are you, dead?" He snorts, folding an arm lazily over his kneecap. "Finally. But honestly, what a stupid way to go. Barely even put up a fight." He smirks. "You really are irritating."

At that, he laughs. And then, as there is no response, there is the uncomfortable moment of silent realization, arriving half-way through and bringing his casual chuckling to an abrupt stalemate; jubilance quickly easing off into something else entirely. Thin, dark brows furrow with sudden concentration, and he glances back at his downed rival. Still no movement, no comment, no nothing. He'd at least expected some kind of weak retaliation. "Ryuhou. . .?"

"Yo, Ryuhou!" He pushes the body again. And nothing. So he tries again. And again. "What, did you seriously kick the bucket? After just three Shell Bullets? You bastard!" Frantic. Angry. "You'd better just be blacked out, because if you're dead, I swear I'll fucking kill you!" Desperate. Furious. Not thinking clearly. Not thinking at all.

He screamed. No, more like snarled in frustration, but with the volume of a hellbent, rampaging animal.

He kicked that body around for an hour, roaring obscenities, and all that passed shied quickly away, unsure as to what the wild Native was doing or if he'd simply just snapped and gone mad. Hands clenched into white-knuckled fists, he continued to kick the HOLY officer through the dust, smashing everything on him he could touch.

This wasn't supposed to happen!

"Wake up, you asshole!"

"Ryuhou!"

"RYUHOU!"

And the tears streaked through the blood-dirt of his face, features contorted in horrible rage. "RYUHOU, DON'T YOU FUCKING DIE ON ME NOW, I'M NOT THROUGH WITH YOU YET!" One last wretched scream of utter hatred tore from those cracking lips, and then . . .

Then he just . . .stopped. Broke down like a machine with severed power lines. He stopped yelling and he stopped punching and kicking his unresponsive rival, kneeling into the settled aftermath to scoop the battered body into his arms, cradling heavily and crying barely audible tears that rained over Ryuhou's head and shoulders like a hot sprinkling of wet fire.

( Staying alive was the only thing that mattered . . .

I've done some terrible things . . .

. . . I fought . . .

Cursed myself for who I was.

I'm different now . . . .

I've changed.

I found someone who needs my protection. . .someone who needs my friendship. . . )

He presses the side of his face to Ryuhou's, sucking up his tears- always the fighter - and moaning quietly in anguish, sometimes roughly, as he rocked them back and forth, sometimes allowing himself to wonder painfully, What have I done? He hugs the fallen to his torso like a bloody ragdoll with aquarian hair and silenced, sleepy eyes, closing. . .finally, closing. . .and he grates his teeth down to the nerves, fingers wound so tightly in the flaxen strands as to call his hold a violently saddened one. Grieving over the perfection he never saw until he'd completely and totally destroyed it; had never known until it was too late. The perfect rival.

"God damnit Ryuhou. . ." He teeters, clutching and gently rubbing the side of his face against Ryuhou's. "You piece of shit . . .What did I do to you?"

And then, a weak, wet sputtering. Kazuma's heart stopped.

Slender fingers lazily gripped his shoulders, the HOLY officer's only current physical support, rose-blackened garnet eyes drifting into an elusive and uncertain focus. He could vaguely make out Kazuma's stricken, dirty face hovering just inches above his own, looking as though someone had just stabbed him through the chest, and wet on his cheeks, glistening beneath the desert sky.

". . .I think you. . .broke my nose. . ." A wince. "Ribs too." Ryuhou closes his eyes again, allowing a small and private smile as two fingers were lifted to his enemy's face and calloused fingertips brushed a few of the clumsy tears from Kazuma's cheek. He chuckles sleepily and closes his eyes. "Native. . .don't cry."


End file.
